BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) - Airport travel locally has not returned to the pre-COVID levels, though officials say they're steadily climbing and expect a significant amount of travel this weekend as many schools go on their spring break.
"We're looking at about 4,000-plus passengers flying out over the next three days or so," Bill Vanecek, Aviation Director at the NFTA, said. "They're heading south."
Vanecek said Southwest and Frontier combined nearly 2,000 passengers alone on Thursday at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport while JetBlue added another 600 flights to those southern markets.
While it's not at the pre-COVID levels, Vanecek said the trends are encouraging.
"We're still missing a big influx of passengers that we would normally see coming down from Canada," he said. "Canadians typically make up 30% of our traffic. When the border does open, I expect we will see the numbers jump quite significantly."
The Buffalo Niagara International Airport has been hard hit financially because of the pandemic and the related restrictions. Not only did they lose millions on the loss of airport traffic, other costs were lost too because there were fewer parking spots used and fewer people buying food at the airport.
"Hopefully this momentum stays," he said.
Vanecek said there has been some longer times in security checkpoint lines, though it has improved. Before the pandemic, airport officials estimated arriving 90 minutes before a flight is optimal to ensure you will catch your flight on time.
"I think 90 minutes will still work for us at this point," he said. "We have a lot of capacity at our checkpoints since we're still doing about half of what we are normally doing this type of year."
The Transportation Security Administration reported nearly 1.3 million travelers traveled through a security checkpoint on March 31. This is nearly ten times the number of travelers compared to March 31, but about half the number of travelers in 2019.
